The Murder Book Page 2

  Dawn was breaking, showing itself in a lightening of the sky and a reddening of the clouds that echoed the smouldering fire.

  Mother Jo’s sons and grandsons stood beside it, the pyre of Mother Jo’s possessions and memories burning down now into ashes and still-glowing wood. Elijah poked with his booted foot at a sliver of painted door, the roses charred and blackened but still just visible in the orange light.

  ‘She was a good woman,’ he said quietly.

  Harry, her son, nodded. ‘But it’s best she’s gone,’ he said, his voice equally soft. ‘Times are changing. She couldn’t change with them, not no more.’

  He nodded respectfully to the boss man and then strode to the centre of the circle, gathering his people about him and waiting until silence fell before he spoke.

  ‘My mam didn’t want no one to mourn for her,’ he said. ‘She had a good life and a long one and she didn’t want no tears shed unless they were in friendship. So I’ll not wait another year to say this. I’ll let her be gone now.’

  A murmur of approval whispered through the assembly and Harry took a deep breath in to stop his own near-falling tears, then slowly let it out.

  ‘Devlesa araklam tume,’ he said. ‘It is with God that I found you. Akana mukav tut le Devesla. I now leave you to God. I open your way in the new life, Mother, and release you from our sorrow.’

  Her grandson came to stand beside his father.

  ‘The sun shine on your soul,’ they told her spirit, fancying they saw it rise with the dawn mist. ‘And the Earth keep and bless your bones.’

  THREE

  Ethan had the grandmother of all hangovers. He was trying desperately not to let it show, though the careful way he kept his head still even while he walked and the tender-footed steps he took along the rutted farm path might have given a clue to anyone that was watching.

  By contrast, his dad strode out as energetically as usual, though Ethan knew that for every glass he’d sunk last night his dad had matched him with another two.

  Neither of them had slept, going straight from the wake to work as dawn brightened the sky. But then the same would be true of most of the workers that morning and Ethan wondered, painfully, how many of them would be feeling as rough as he did. Still, he compensated himself, they’d given the old lady a good send off and everyone had eaten well, and that was something that could not often be said these days – though the pork now sat a little too heavy on his queasy stomach.

  It was June 23 of 1928 and depression was biting hard. News of the so-called General Strike of two years before had briefly impinged on the village; its failure had merely reinforced the sense that those with money would always hold the power too. No one in this village would ever have dreamed of withholding their labour. What would be the point? Destitution could bite swiftly and deeply enough without anyone deliberately drawing it down.

  The track brought them to the yard at the back of the Hanson place. A gravelled driveway led up to the front door but Ethan had never approached the big house that way. It never occurred to him that he should. The rear yard was enclosed on three sides, the back of the house making up one full wall with stables and stores and tack rooms filling out another two. A low wooden fence with a double gate finished the square but it was rare for the big gates to be closed; too much traffic in the shape of people and carts and horses and machines went in and out that way. The big, cobbled yard with the farmhouse kitchen jutting out into it was the heart of Hanson’s farm.

  Ethan’s boots clacked loudly on the cobbles. The noise did nothing to help his sore and aching head, the sound cracking upward from his feet and shattering through his entire body. His boots were studded with hobnails, the same as all the workers. Boots were an expensive commodity, bought too large to allow for growth, and the leather softened with grease until they moulded to the feet, the soles reinforced with metal cleats and broad tacks. As a child, Ethan had delighted in the way his hobnailed feet could be made to strike sparks on the hard stones and in winter, with a little work, the studs could be polished flat and shined up, perfect for sliding on the frozen pond. But he’d not been a child for long. The adult world impinged long before his adult height was reached or his voice deepened or he’d felt the need to shave.

  Hanson senior’s horse was being groomed. She was tethered to an iron ring driven deep into the stable wall and Elijah’s oldest son was taking care of her himself. Dar Samuels led his son over.

  ‘This is Ethan,’ he said.

  The young man, about Ethan’s own age, looked up with a friendly smile and extended a hand. ‘Ted Hanson,’ he said. ‘But I remember you – we were in class together.’

  Ethan nodded. ‘You got me blamed for pulling Emma Casey’s pigtails.’

  Ted laughed. ‘God, but you’ve got a long memory. She got married last spring. Did you know that?’

  ‘Aye, our mam was telling me.’ He reached out and laid a gentle hand on the horse’s neck. ‘It’s a fine beast,’ he said. ‘We were both soft on Emma Casey from what I remember. You weren’t at the wake last night,’ he added.

  ‘No, Ted was stuck in Lincoln,’ Dar Samuels said. ‘His dad trusts him with a lot of the business these days.’

  Ted Hanson nodded and began to move the burnisher over the horse’s flank once more. ‘I was sorry to have missed it,’ he said. ‘Dar, you may as well make a start with Miss Elizabeth’s pony. She’s coming lame again – still got that swelling. Dad says give it one more try and if you can’t fix it we’ll just have to call in the vet, but you know how much he doesn’t trust him.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ Dar said. He gestured to Ethan to follow him.

  ‘He’s all right, that one,’ he told Ethan as they made off towards the far stall where the little grey belonging to Elijah’s daughter was housed. ‘He’s grown up like his dad. Cares about his animals and his people. Not like that other one. You watch yourself with that Robert – he’s a bad ’un.’ He paused; glanced sideways at his son. ‘You’d do well to mind yourself with that lass too. She’s a fly one is Helen Lee.’

  ‘I’m not a kid, you know. I can handle her.’

  ‘Maybe you can but there’s been an understanding between her family and Frank Church’s from when they were both little mites. It doesn’t do to come between families.’

  ‘She doesn’t seem so keen.’

  ‘She was keen enough before last night.’ He sighed. Ethan had that fixed look on his face that his father knew so well. I’m not hearing you, it said. I’ll not listen to something I don’t want to hear.

  ‘Look, boy, I’ll grant she’s pretty enough but you know what they say. Look with your ears when you choose a bride, not just with your eyes.’

  ‘You’re saying she’s got a reputation? Dad, there’s not a girl in the village the women don’t talk about. Not a girl married but the old folk count the months until her first child is born.’

  His father sighed again. ‘Well, you’ll make your own mind up, I’ve no doubt. Look, boy, I’ve nothing against the girl but it doesn’t do to come upsetting the apple cart when things have been expected. The Churches and the Lees want this marriage. They’ve been friends for years. They’re second cousins. It’s expected.’

  ‘Maybe Helen has other ideas. Molly didn’t marry where you wanted.’

  ‘And your sister’s lived to rue it too. Miserable, she is.’

  ‘And I’m sorry for that, but that doesn’t mean … Anyway, who’s talking about marriage? I met the girl just last night.’

  His father gave him another sideways look before unlatching the door to the pony’s stable. ‘Just be careful, lad,’ he said. ‘You’ve come home now. This isn’t some port you’ll stop over long enough to get laid and load your cargo. It doesn’t go to upset folk you have to live among.’

  Ethan said nothing. If he was honest with himself he knew that his dad was right but he wasn’t in the mood just now for being honest. His father’s comments brought a flush of guilt and a little shame. That was e
xactly what he’d done as soon as he’d reached home. Before returning to the village he’d gone in search of an old friend that he knew he might rely upon for … well …

  Mary Fields.

  It had cost him a little of his hard-earned pay but he’d thought it well worth it at the time. Now … suddenly … he wasn’t so sure.

  They had argued.

  But it didn’t matter now. He wouldn’t be seeing her again, that was for certain.

  He leaned back against the stone wall of the pony’s stall, watching his dad running expert hands over the little beast then, just for a moment, he closed his eyes, hoping that the pounding in his head might cease. It didn’t but he kept them closed a little longer anyway, enjoying the image that came unbidden into his mind, pictured behind his tightly closed lids. It was the face of Helen Lee.

  FOUR

  It was four days after the burial that the bodies were discovered. The landlord had told the builders that the woman and child were leaving by the end of the week and that they could move into the yard and start work there. Knock down everything except the privy, they’d been told, flatten the outbuildings and start taking up flags in the yard.

  The builders had knocked on her door several times, wanting to let her know what they were going to do but there had been no reply. They duly brought down the wall at the back of the shop and started to clear the rubble away, hauling it into a flatbed lorry outside in the street. The foreman had spoken to the neighbours but no one had seen either woman or child for a couple of days.

  ‘Like as not she’s gone to stay with relatives or something,’ they were told. And the builders, not knowing any different, had shared this assumption so they moved into the yard as the landlord had instructed them to do. The foreman peered in through the kitchen window and was surprised to see the remains of a loaf and a pat of butter on the kitchen table. He could tell from the state of the house that the woman and child were down on their uppers so he was shocked to see food left for the mice to get. A little uneasy now, he knocked on the back door. The sound echoed through the house but there was no response. Something told him that all was not right but his need to get paid at the end of the week overcame these misgivings and told him that he should just get on with the job and mind his own business. ‘You can start on the outhouse,’ he told two of his men, ‘and Benny, you start to get that rubbish in the yard taken out to the lorry. Use the wheelbarrer, Truby, you give him ’and.’

  He went back into the shop to check on the plastering. June it might be, but it had been dank and cold so far and the new plaster was taking the Devil’s own time to dry out. He figured they were about three days behind where he wanted to be – not disastrous but enough to be an irritation.

  It was about half an hour later when he heard the shout and he went outside to find Truby and Benny staring at a hole in the ground.

  ‘What the bloody ’ell you two lookin at?’

  ‘We just lifted that flag and under the stone … I think it’s ’er. Mrs Fields.’

  ‘What the ’ell you on about?’ The foreman came round to peer at the hole. They all gathered and looked down. A woman’s face, her face caked in mud, her nose broken where the flagstone had been dropped down but her eyes open and seeming to be staring back.

  FIVE

  ‘You coming for a drink, George?’

  George Fields shook his head. ‘Thanks, but I’ll be heading off – make it back home tonight if I can. See the wife and bairn.’

  His companion laughed. ‘Aye, well get off then – safe trip. See you in another week or so.’

  George walked swiftly, away from the docks and through the streets of terraced houses and corner shops and pawn shops and pubs. There was a prevalent joke that a man would return from the boats with money in his pockets on a Friday, buy his missus a fur coat on a Saturday and that the coat would be in hock by the time he went back to sea again. George was of a mind that this was a rumour put around by richer folk who understood nothing of the streets and terraces occupied by what they might term the lower classes, but even he had to own there was some truth in the tale. Many of his shipmates would go home with their pockets lightened by a day in the pub before their wives saw any of the profits.

  George paused beneath the street lamp and lit his cigarette. It was still not fully light but the streets were already busy. Working people off for their daily grind. Three little kids ran past him, one wearing hobnailed boots, two barefoot, their shirttails hanging out and muck on their faces even at this hour. Mary would never let their Ruby out without her face washed and her hair combed, George thought. And he was thankful that she’d never gone without shoes or had to do with hand-me-downs. It was a source of pride that their kid had never gone hungry and that Mary never had either even if that did mean George being away from home for weeks at a time. He plucked his watch out of his waistcoat pocket. It was old, battered brass with a worn face but it still told the time. It had been his father’s. One day, he had told Mary, he would buy himself a wristwatch. There’d be the money to spare and he would get himself one with a good leather strap. He began to walk towards the centre of Grimsby, intending to grab a bite to eat at Freeman Street market – the traders would have set up but there would still be cheap breakfasts on the go. He could have got food on the dockside and beer too had he gone with his friend, the licensing laws counting for little there, but George was strict about drinking before the evening. His dad had always said it was a slippery slope and George knew how easy it was to slide.

  He walked quickly, his feet and legs finding their rhythm on the hard street, his body adjusting to the solid ground after the shifting of the ship’s deck. Ten days he’d have now – ten days of Mary and Ruby and home. He had money in his pocket, would soon have a full belly and by this evening … By this evening he’d have a woman in a warm bed and all would be right with the world.

  SIX

  Since 1907 it had been the right of any police force in the country to summon the murder detective from Scotland Yard. There were some seven hundred detectives in the metropolitan district but a mere handful spread across the rest of the land, and so far the men of the murder squad had taken their skills to just about every corner of it, but Henry could not remember anybody going to Louth. He had not expected to be called upon for immediate departure; the board in the central office that listed detectives on call had him down as third on 22 June 1928, and that meant he should have had a full day before being expected to get himself to the station with his sergeant and equipment and head north. But as so often worked out, the first on the list, Chief Inspector Protheroe, was on a call and the second, Chief Inspector Savage, was still giving evidence in court, which meant that Chief Inspector Henry Johnstone was next in line for the job.

  He had a message sent to his sergeant to meet him at the station in an hour and Henry went home to collect the bag he left ready packed. Henry had no one to say goodbye to and he had bought tickets and was standing on the platform well ahead of time. Tall and slim and quiet, Henry took up a position in the centre of the space where he knew his sergeant would be able to see him. The stream of porters and travellers simply broke around him, as though he were some large stone in a fast-flowing river. Henry was used to people giving him a wide berth; they did so unconsciously but regularly.

  Sergeant Mickey Hitchens strode across the concourse towards him, a bag gripped in each hand. One large leather holdall contained Mickey’s personal effects, the other, though insignificant looking, was the famous murder bag that all detectives now carried with them when on call. It contained basic Scotland Yard-issue materials for the collection and analysis of a crime scene and also a few Mickey Hitchens extras.

  ‘Lincolnshire, then,’ Mickey Hitchens said.

  ‘Lincoln tonight, on to Boston and then Louth with the milk train first thing in the morning. It’s too late to get a through train tonight. I thought we’d walk up from the station into the old town. From what I remember the White Hart is a good plac
e to stay.’

  Mickey dumped his bags on the floor. The crowds of travellers and porters now broke around both of them – two stones in the river. ‘What do we know?’

  ‘Three bodies found by builders excavating the yard. Not been in the ground too long from the sound of it. I’ve given instructions to cover the scene with tarpaulins and leave it in situ until morning. That didn’t go down too well but hopefully they’ll listen to me.’

  Sergeant Hitchens nodded. The announcement their train had arrived came over the tannoy so Mickey hoisted the bags again. ‘Don’t know that part of the world,’ he said. ‘I hear it’s very flat.’

  ‘Louth is in the Lincolnshire Wolds, not on the fens. It’s far from flat.’

  ‘Too far from the sea to go for a paddle then,’ Mickey Hitchens commented.

  SEVEN

  Behind the cottages that made up Red Row there was an open field. In that field lay the remains of a manor house, sacked at the time of Cromwell’s war. Its foundations were still visible in the grass, together with one small piece of wall rising to about six feet in height. The locals called this ruin ‘the castle’ and believed it to be much, much older than the civil war. They told stories of the ghosts that resided there, gliding and drifting through the long, ruined hall and visible in the mist that rose most mornings from the damp of the spring-ridden grass.

  The field was too wet for cultivation, the whole of the hillside being riddled with underground streams that filtered down through the sandy soil and filled the mill pond, the reservoir for the manse and the dew baths for the sheep. Sometimes the field was used for grazing, but as often it lay empty. Ethan had wondered since boyhood what had possessed the builders of the castle to put it there, where the ground was little more than marsh from October to May, but no one had been able to tell him.